


flowers shall grow

by Shamandalie



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Unrequited Love, also i probably should tag this as, at least that's what Daryl thinks, but y'know he isn't dead and all that bs so, i stopped watching after rick died so not canon compliant lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 05:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19805587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamandalie/pseuds/Shamandalie
Summary: The only man he's ever loved was dead...and he deserved a funeral. So, swallowing down the nauseating feeling of utter despair, Daryl went looking for his body.That was six years ago.





	flowers shall grow

_‘From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.’_

Rick deserved a funeral. His family to standing over his grave, weeping, remembering, thanking. A place to rest in, peacefully, forevermore. Where the flowers could grow, close to where his daughter would play. He, of all people, deserved that. And Daryl...he would make that happen.  
  
That was the first coherent thought in Daryl's grief-stricken mind. He didn't know how long he'd been walking, he only had a vague idea of where he was. The only thing he could see was the fire...the fire he'd left behind.  
  
He didn't want to go back.

He didn't want to see what was out there.  
  
Rick's body, lifeless, bloody, on the ground. Or even worse - Rick's body, lifeless but somewhat alive, driven by a virus, his once soft lips growling, his once piercing blue eyes not seeing.  
Just like...Merle.  
  
Witnessing Merle as a walker devastated him, and he couldn't bear to think about Rick sharing the same fate. He couldn't bear to think about Rick at all.  
  
But he had to.  
  
'Face the damn reality, kid', he whispered the words his daddy used to shout at him.  
  
And the reality was that the only man he's ever loved was dead...and he deserved a funeral.  
  
So, swallowing down the nauseating feeling of utter despair, Daryl went looking for his body.  
  
That was six years ago.  
-

  
These first few days, he was scared. Petrified, really. He would close his eyes and see his brother, and the image of him, undead, would merge with his memory of Rick. He looked every walker in the face, searching for familiarities and dreading finding them. But every decomposed face he looked at was just that - decomposed flesh of something once human, but so far gone from humanity that seeing it for anything else than a peculiar creature and an enemy was no longer possible for Daryl, nor for any of them.  
  
Then, he looked desperately. He didn't want to admit it even to himself, but his desperation was a result of hope. If there wasn't a body...maybe there wasn't a death. Maybe he survived. Fucking Rick Grimes, right? He's been to hell and back, if someone could survive that, it was surely him?  
Yeah. He could be somewhere, anywhere, waiting for Daryl to rescue him, to bring him back to his family. He could. But he wasn't.  
  
Months of desperation and clinging to hope drained him. He returned to living secure within walls. He didn't go to Alexandria; the thought of seeing pregnant Michonne was unbearable.

_He will never see the baby, he will never hold the baby, she's alone, I could’ve saved him, I could've stopped him, it could've been me, it should've been me._

He didn't want to talk to anyone, had nothing to say really, couldn't force himself to think and talk about 'the future' everyone seemed to be so obsessed with. He didn't want the future. This world needed Rick Grimes, Daryl needed Rick Grimes. What was the future without him?

  
Every day, he would dream the same dream. Rick standing on that damn bridge. Him, shooting his crossbow, arrow after arrow after arrow, each of them missing, the walkers surrounding Rick, the fire consuming him, and Daryl watching, frozen, unable to move, unable to scream, unable to save him.

  
'Don't go out there again, Daryl,' said Carol, and he ignored her.

  
It made him angry, they all made him so fucking angry. They were suddenly all ready to let go of Rick, so sure he was dead, so sure looking for him wasn't necessary or good for Daryl.  
  
How the hell did they suddenly know what was good for him? He was a grown up man, he could make his own decisions, thank you very much.  
  
'I have to find him, Carol. You know I do.'  
  
She would just shake her head, and squeeze his arm gently. And he would turn his back on her and leave. Month after month, year after year.  
  
Somewhere along the way, he believed them. He went miles and miles in every direction, circled back his own footsteps more times he cared to admit and found...nothing. Rick was dead, he had to be, and Daryl needed to believe it to save himself from going insane. Which he was.  
  
Sometime during the second year he found himself talking to Rick. During third, he started seeing him. During fourth, he started daydreaming, like a fucking teenage girl.  
  
He would imagine Rick sitting against that old oak tree that Daryl liked to camp next to, sipping water, droplets of sweat forming on his forehead, smiling at something Daryl said.  
He would imagine touching Rick's cheek, him leaning into the touch.

He imagined himself holding Rick, kissing Rick, Rick laughing, Rick biting his neck, Rick, Rick, _Rick._

  
He imagined telling Rick he loved him, like he wanted to do so many times...and he never did.

  
Why didn't he? And what would that change if he did?  
  
Nothing. Rick wouldn't kiss him, wouldn't hold him. But he would understand. He would tell Daryl they were brothers. He would look at him with his ocean eyes and Daryl would feel safe. And that would be...enough.'  
  
'You have to say goodbye, Daryl,' Tara would say to him every time he saw her.  
  
'I don't want to,' he would respond stubbornly, but deep down he knew she was right.  
  
He realized that along the way – that somehow it all stopped being about Rick, about finding his body and burying him (or about finding him, period) and became more about Daryl's inability to let go, about his fear of forgetting the only person he was ever truly in love with, about accepting that he was alive when he should be, because how can he of all people deserve to live when Rick doesn't get to?  
  
Sometimes, he wanted to go back to Alexandria. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't look Michonne in the eye and not feel ashamed. 'I'm sorry,' he wanted to scream every time they talked.

 _I'm sorry I left him alone that day. I'm sorry it wasn't me. I'm sorry that I didn't find him. I'm sorry I wished he was mine instead._  
  
She thanked him, once or twice.  
'Thank you for looking,' she said.  
'Thank you for not giving up.'  
  
And he cried, cried while she held him.  
'I loved him. I loved him so much.'  
And she cried with him. She was always so composed, so strong. She had her kids; she had to live for them. But the pain that he felt was so overwhelmingly hers as well.  
'I know. I know, Daryl. So did I.'  
  
At some point, he decided it was time.  
'This pain lasts forever, Daryl,' Carol told him once, 'You just learn to live with it.'  
  
He knew nothing would be as it used to be. He no longer was a part of any of the communities, regardless of what they were saying. He didn’t belong, and, if he was being honest, he didn't really want to return to living safe behind walls with neighbors. It was too late - he had always been a wild thing, and only Rick was able to tame him.  
But he didn't want to keep looking, either. He wasn't going to find anything. The past would never change. The grief was here to stay.  
  
But for the first time Daryl realized Rick would want _better_ for him. He would like him to play with his daughter and son, he would like him to laugh with Carol.  
  
'You're family, too,' he once told him, and Daryl was going to make sure he stayed a part of it.  
  
When they were still at prison, Glenn would often ask Daryl to bring some flowers home from runs, so he could give them to Maggie. Daryl didn't care about flowers at all - especially after the apocalypse- but he showed up with azaleas once and Maggie loved them. Glenn told him they were perfect - they signified softness and were a sign of love. He laughed at the boy then, but ever since, he would think of Rick every time he saw the little pink things. Soft...it was how he felt when Rick looked at him, soft like a damn marshmallow. And if giving someone flowers meant that he didn't have to say the words and the person would still know, then fuck, he was gonna get Rick some flowers one day.  
  
So that's what he did.  
  
He left his camp one day, taking his map with him. He looked at the black x-marks covering the entire thing - places in which he didn't find Rick - and took a deep breath. It was the last time he was going to follow along these paths he created.  
  
He was looking for that oak tree, the one he spent countless nights under, imagining Rick being there with him, under the stars.  
  
When he finally spotted it, he immediately felt choked up. He could almost see him, standing there in his brown jacket, curls falling on his forehead, his blue eyes looking at Daryl, smiling. Almost.  
  
He knelt under the tree and took out a bag of seeds.  
  
'Ok, I know this is stupid,' he mumbled.  
  
'These are azalea seeds. I...I used to want to give you flowers. To tell you I love you.'  
  
His voice trembled. His hands were shaking, almost unable to dig in the ground.  
  
'They mean softness. And love. And they make me think of Georgia...There's a shitload of them there. Uhm...Yeah.'  
  
He looked up to the sky, as if he truly was there somewhere, as if there was God and heaven that Rick deserved, and not only hell on this damned planet.  
  
'I love you. I loved you from the very beginning. And I miss you. I will always miss you.'  
  
He poured water over the freshly planted seeds.  
  
'So...this is goodbye, Rick.'  
  
'You know, knowing you...you being my brother...that was everything. Everything, man.'

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So the fact that Daryl never stopped looking for Rick's body killed me and I came back from dead just yesterday. That's why I'm posting this months after the episode aired. Not because I didn't finish and forgot about it. Ok.
> 
> Anyway since I was dead, I have no idea what happened on TWD after that episode - and I don't plan on finding out - I just hope Daryl and his dog are okay.
> 
> This is unbeta'ed, as always (we die like men ladies) and any mistakes you find you're very welcome to share with me.
> 
> I love comments!
> 
> philipplahmz on tumblr


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